


One Brutal Summer

by oREDACTEDo



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Caleb's an old man who likes forgetting about his youth, F/M, Ghosts of the Past - Freeform, Love at First Sight, Reminiscing, Romance, Unrequited Love, Violence, former lover, possible additional chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:02:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23824279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oREDACTEDo/pseuds/oREDACTEDo
Summary: "One brutal summer, her voice made him fall even more in love than he already was."A new survivor remindes The Deathslinger of a particular ghost from his past.
Relationships: Caleb Quinn | The Deathslinger/ Original Character(s), Caleb Quinn | The Deathslinger/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 42





	One Brutal Summer

**Author's Note:**

> A drabble I wrote for fun between my Ghostface fic chapters. Not proof-read. Forgive me.

Blood.

Faintly—and if he put his quelling anger aside—he could recall a time before the stench of blood lingered in his coat. Before oil was always dug up deep in his nailbeds. Before he saddled up with men of differing yet equally questionable vulgarities. Back when he didn’t know a damn thing about racism. When he was a child living in Glenvale, and the other kids would play with him prior to hearing the pitch, tone, and rugged accent of his father coming out the back door of yet another unsuccessful exchange with a proprietor, to which denied him of work. After that, the boys would hit him, and the girls would turn their glances away. Because of the nature of his kin. Because of the curve of his tongue as he spoke—subtle compared to his parents, and never really noticed until after that fateful day. He recalled the first time he’d ever been punched. It tasted like iron.

The blood.

As dirty as the craft was, it was that oil in his nails that gave him meaning. That enjoyable pleasure he got from working on inventions. The macabre side of his interest hidden beneath the planks of wood in his room where he’d slot his fingers between the seams to pull them out. Blueprints of wicked contraptions, one of which sketched on that little shit Franklin Smith being one of his more favorable. The girls always said Smith had pretty green eyes. A mask that would tear his eyes straight from his skull, and not clean either. Kids never looked at him the same.

But _she_ did.

Donna Matthews never stopped playing with him, at least not by her own will. A pretty face with locks like hay and softer than freshly pulled cotton. Eyes greener than the stories of grassy knolls back in Ireland that his daddy told him so much about. The summer heat would make her skin flush red. Leave a sheen to it. Sweat and dirt was an icky thing. Caleb as a child always thought it made her look ethereal. The girls would pick on her though when she’d come back smelling like a poor man’s stew. Having been seen with immigrants was bad for her. Bad for the family. Caleb’s father told her one night to never come back—that she wasn’t wanted there. He never understood that it was for her own sake. From then, he had to watch from afar.

At the very least, she stopped having bruises after that.

Never did Caleb stop watching her either. By the time he was a young man, he saw Donna grow up. Lovely, aging like the smoothest whiskey in the parlor. Like a cool, tall glass of lemonade that only the finest of governors get to have. Nobody in their right mind ought to look at Donna and not mistaken her for one of a higher class, despite the dusty clothes and farmhand callouses on her fingertips. Regardless of her unruly hair whose wildness only attracted the estrange Caleb all the more. On more occasions than he could count, she’d look up to see him spying from whatever safe distance he’d stationed himself at, and she’d smile at him.

She remembered, and it made his hand sweat.

As the years rolled by, his old man died before getting the pleasure of seeing discrimination laid to rest. At least enough for his peculiar son to find work. Railroad work, a business that was booming. Doing dad proud was the last thing on his mind though.

Blood.

Blood, sweat, and tears of unmatched frustration. It wasn’t necessarily hard to mark these things. These contraptions solely for utility. There was hope in him. Save up the money, buy himself a nice ring, and read a book or two on courting. Donna still smiled to him every day when he stalked his way to the saloon to get a drink. Sharp eyes would notice the lack of a ring on a particular finger of hers. In his mind there was still a chance. Small, but he was able to work with situations of little faith. The night before it all fell apart, she took a seat beside him and said something. Her voice, it became different over the years, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it all night.

_“You’ve grown into a handsome man, haven’t you, Caleb?”_

_“Yeah? Ya think so, do ya?”_

And then she threw him a cat-like smile that sent his heart racing.

One brutal summer, her voice made him fall even more in love than he already was. That’s when he vowed that if anyone was to be his wife, it just had to be Donna Matthews.

Tears were never really a thing for him. Hope, he had it still.

Until he saw one of his creations under the hands of some other sap he’d never met in his forsaken life. Until he saw the patent no longer under his name, but of someone else’s. Of a one _Henry Bayshore_ , proprietor of United West Rail. Caleb felt a rage he’d thought he wouldn’t feel since he’d grown from that temper-filled life. From way back when the kids would punch him for his accent. For his mother’s homeland cooking they could smell outside the windows. For his daddy’s inability to get a job, and the fact that they lived on roadkill and potatoes.

Blood.

It smelt like iron between his fingers. Mingling with the oil from last night’s project. The officials came. Certainly, Bayshore was already dead. He drove a road spike through him just in case. That’s when he fell in love with the feeling of blood. As they dragged him out the building in chains in cuffs, out into the mean heat in the dustbowl of the west, Caleb knew damn well he wouldn’t ever see Donna again. And it was like a hope inside of him curdled, forgotten. In his mind, Donna died, and so did everything else.

But Hellshire didn’t mark the end for his otherwise dead career. The warden saw his plight—acknowledged his capabilities. There the oil was back beneath his fingers—a gift in Caleb’s eyes—the oil, and the blood. He had a purpose. He had a posse. He had found an old love.

Gifted his fixings of violence and tinkering, he kept himself busy. Once in a blue moon he’d think of the soft, yellow hair and lovely skin kissed by the sun as it glistened with sweat. Like a rough jewel begging to be polished between his hands, but to him it was perfect either way. He’d wear that jewel and parade it, dress it in fine things and treat her well in their intimate moments of secrecy. And he would call her _Mrs. Caleb Quinn_. And when a mystery visitor came to see him, he got scared. Caleb knew who it was—he couldn’t let her see what he’d become—so he denied her. Every time, he refused to see her. Refused to turn around to the sound of her voice outside his bars. Pleading to see his face. Caleb had grown ugly in more ways than one. It wasn’t in his heart to show her his ugly mug—his ugly soul.

_“I know what you did was wrong, Caleb, but I want to tell you something. And you need to look at me when I say it,”_ she urged, sounding so firm yet still sweet as honey. One day, he finally said something back.

**_“No. Leave me alone, Donna. Don’ come back again.”_ **

Donna stopped showing up after that. The dream ended there, and every time he found himself regretting, he would bite down hard on his fingernail and pulled, _pulled_ , **_pulled_**. Until it tugged right off the nailbed and bled all over the floor. He saw the blood, thought of the first time he bled as a child. With Donna’s pretty eyes jeweling with tears as she screamed for the boys to stop piling up on him. Begged and cried before running off to fetch the sheriff, only to return with a bloody Caleb on the floor and the boys running off to their mothers. Back then, she was there. There was no one who saw him worth saving now. News got out that Glenvale was eradicated by gangs, and likely her with it. Caleb knew— _Donna didn’t stop tryin’ ‘cause she’d given up on me_ —and the revelation made him unreasonably mad.

Donna was **gone**.

The posse did always wonder why he treated so inhumanely the gang responsible for Glenvale’s obliteration.

Didn’t make anything better for him, though. The Warden was mad as a cut snake after finding out all those wanted men turned up deader than doornails. By the end of it, the reality never changed. She was dead, both in memory and body. A fleeting thing far from his mind, forgotten within the furthest corner of his brain once he picked up the Redeemer again.

A few years later he saw the papers signifying yet another betrayal. When the Hellshire gang flew through the cell blocks with his trusty piece of work in hand—the Redeemer, his new and only love. When the prisoners were let loose and the warden’s cried ended, replaced with the agonizing cries of whatever of Bayshore was left for the posse. Caleb sat on his old, moldy cot in that dank, dreary cell, fingers dripping with blood and eyes glowing with a kindling hate. Blood dripped from his fingers.

**_Blood_**.

The only warmth in his life. And not another thought of anything but it.

A breath.

One, _two_ , **_three_**.

**BOOM.**

And the satisfying cry always followed. Metal chains clanked. The mechanism didn’t give way as he reeled. Never, because it was of a perfect design. Heavy, not quite as compact, but perfect in its own rigid way. The fish was near. One slash, and they were on the ground. Interesting, how the legs were untouched but they were incapable of fleeing. The Deathslinger would give chase if his leg hadn’t been so injured, but he could care less. There needn’t be worrying about keeping up with them. The Redeemer always worked its wonders when he held her just right. The only thing in the world that wouldn’t disappoint him. That ever made him feel loved and appreciated.

A bitter cry came from Jake’s lips. Undoubtedly, the killer would tail him upon catching the survivor breaking a second hook. It was as if the Deathslinger took it personally. The fire burning beneath his molten white gaze flickered brighter after witnessing the dust rise with the hook’s loud, heavy clatter. Jake knew he was screwed after that and felt damn ashamed for not watching his back better. But he wasn’t used to this sort of chase. Just because he was far, it doesn’t mean someone was safe. One shoulder with a hook, the other with a gaping hole from the harpoon. Flesh tore as it was pulled free from his body’s grip. Jake was about to faint when suddenly he felt hands touch at his ribs. Instinctively, he grabbed the thin shoulders of a woman he barely recognized at first. And then it clicked.

“You’re the new girl,” he weakly rasped. Yanking him free, Jake couldn’t fight the scream that rattled through his body, finding himself requiring her full assistance to just move normally. “Should have left me.”

“I’d never do that,” she fumbled through the weeds, dragging him to the gate that was already being opened. They fled to the sound of metal clanging and spurs clanking with every dusty step on the dirt road. The gun roared, booming loud into the dusky sky and growing lost into the fake stratosphere. Damn, he’d been aiming for the ingrate little hook breaker, but had missed. The Deathslinger never missed, not if he could help it. No, that bold little lass had shoved him out of the way, but not without a price. By just a hair it missed, but the edges sliced deep into her shoulder, tearing at the olive-green chiffon of her blouse. As he reeled the chains back, sneering with glowing eyes at the distance growing between them, he didn’t find himself worried. He’d get one of them, at least one. With incredible poise and precision he aimed down the rusty iron sights.

“C’mon Jake!”

_Brave little ladies make the best slaughters,_ he thought, watching the woman hoisting the injured man up and shoving him before her, acting as a full-bodied shield. Fine, he’d take her. It was always satisfying to chip away at the more intrepid of the cattle. Plus, the screams of a lady were like music to his ears. She turned, just as he was about to pull the trigger, and stared right into his eyes.

Hair messily pulled up into a bun of sunburnt gold.

Eyes like the grassy knolls of Ireland.

Her skin warmly tanned.

The Deathslinger’s oil-slicked finger paused.

_“Donna?”_ he muttered, stalling enough for her to fixate her gaze onto his horrible face and just… stare back at him. Glowing eyes like cold, distant stars focused on her every move, the rifle lowering from his shoulder as he stood unevenly upon his injured limb. Even in her terror she wondered why he didn’t shoot her, but the call of her companions drew her forward. Far from him, toward the safety of the rumbling fire.

Then she was gone.

Later, he found himself daydreaming. The lonesome engineer removed his duster, left his Redeemer leaning upon the trunk of a dead tree. And as he stared up at the sky—a dark expanse of nothing but the lone, humongous moon—he neglected the slick texture of fresh blood and oil between his fingers and reminisced on not something, but _someone_. He reached into his coat pocket, ignoring the other tormented killers stalking within the shadows of the forest line, and retrieved a small ring. Far too small to fit passed even the bulging joint of his pinky finger. All those years and he still kept it, the notion to selling it for whatever else fit his fancy turned down countless times. The Deathslinger couldn’t help himself even now. It was a memento that reminded him of that someone. Someone he found himself completely enraptured by. Someone that the strange survivor hauntingly mirrored in more ways than one.

A sun-kissed woman with wheat locks and dewy grass eyes, looking an awful lot like Donna standing and sweating within the dustbowl of Glenvale. Before the town was unleashed in bloodshed, where she died while he road in his feign freedom with the Hellshire gang. A beautiful woman in his youth—walking down the dirt line and waving back at him as he secretly fingered the golden band between his calloused fingers. Just like he was doing now. _What did Donna want ta tell me all them years ago?_ No longer was the answer important, simply because it was impossible for him to find out now. Was she like her thought? This strange woman that seemed braver than the lot? Would she make him _feel_ that way again? _Reckon I’ll find out one of these trials,_ he thought to himself. The Deathslinger waited impatiently for his next trial, feeling that same hammering in his cold, dead heart as he did many, many years ago. When he made a silly lovesick vow like the yellowbelly sap he was.

One brutal summer.

**Author's Note:**

> I might continue this one day if I feel up to it.
> 
> And if you're wondering, yes, Donna was going to tell him that she loved him. Ouchhhh.


End file.
